The Last Days of Windows 7

Windows 7 (not Internet Explorer) does not have a "myriad" of sort options. Sort options are limited and this OS lacks the options a lot of people liked since there are a whole lotta people complainign about this. It's not like we're asking for everything-it's thaqt we're asking for choice and I can't believe there was some great reason for this stupid change. Out tech department says options are limited and since we're a beta test site I tend to believe them. This is just another example of Microsoft wanting to control everyone and how they use their computers. Why would it be such a problem for these supposedly brilliant engeineers up in Redmond, Washington to allow us to sort other than alphabetically? Why can't I click and drag files around at will? That was a big selling point of Windows and now it no longer exists except in the very limited ways Gates and company give us. It's no wonder people are unhappy with Microsoft.

EarlGrayHot said:

Why can't I click and drag files around at will? That was a big selling point of Windows and now it no longer exists except in the very limited ways Gates and company give us. It's no wonder people are unhappy with Microsoft.

I'm not entirely sure that was a "big selling point of Windows". In general, Windows' "big selling point" is that most of the software written in the last 25 years or so was Windows-based. As to "the very limited ways Gates and company" gives you options, you might want to consider Bill Gates hasn't been involved in designing anything at Microsoft since Vista, and even then he hasn't written much of the software sold by Microsoft since the late 80s. I almost think this is trolling, but I truly believe for some reason the lack of being able to be helter-skelter with icons does annoy you. You, unfortunately, are not "mainstream" in use - in fact, I'd say you're probably not even a member of a large enough group to be considered "niche". Ultimately though, yes - you can't arrange icons at will in Windows anymore (either on the desktop, in explorer views, etc), so you are indeed lacking a feature you used to use. You will have to either change with the times, or use another operating system that allows this. I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don't - without adding some third party app to Windows to allow this (I don't know if one exists or not, mind you), you're stuck with those sorts of options.

There is always one of these gripe threads going.
Must be a pressure relief valve on the busiest tech forum in the world.

If it helps at all, I've found you can get your desktop icons to stay where placed by right-clicking on an empty area of desktop to Refresh. Don't know about other Explorer windows, which sort by columns just fine for me using Details view.

EarlGrayHot said:

I hope W8 with bring back the ability to sort files however we want instead of forcing the user to sort alphabetically with no other option. I hate Windows 7 for that reason alone and will stick to old XP if this is what I get by upgrading.

The limitation of Window Explorer in Win7 are what drove me to purchase Directory Opus. It lets you do LOTS of things explorer doesn't do. And while it's not cheap, it brings a lot of features to the table.

And, OK, I've seen the ribbon bar in Win8 -- and I'm not impressed -- but let's not take this thread off topic into Windows 8. There is a whole other forum for that -- eightforums.com -- which I highly recommend to anyone interested in what Win8 really does today.

I've been in this business long enough to have gone through this "Ah! it's New and different" scenario many times. Back in the early days of Windows 95 it was so different that people wanted their 3.11 back.

I spent two years or more downgrading XP to Windows 2000 because people did not like the "Disney Graphics" on business systems and there were technical problems with XP on real-time data systems I was working on at that time, I personally still switch off the Luna interface on any XP system I have to work on.

I ran Vista successfully on suitable hardware without any issues, including mixed OS networks. I have been supporting win7 from release and will probably do the same for Win8, [unless I've retired by then :)].

Unfortunately I see examples of official training establishments teaching "computing", using office 2003 on XP, even though their students have Office 2010 on win7, there are System Managers in the workplace that do not know anything other than XP, and have no experience of a system migration. It's amazing that win7 has the uptake rate it does considering the official inertia.

What I do see is that over time that the absolutely new user finds it easier to learn how to work the system with each release, with win7 producing far less "how do I?" questions that any previous OS.

Win7 is one of the best overall Operating systems that has come out of Redmond when you consider stability, reliability, out of the box experience, and ease of use. I would not be at all surprised to see Win8 continue the trend of win7, even with the metro interface

Barman58 said:

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What I do see is that over time that the absolutely new user finds it easier to learn how to work the system with each release, with win7 producing far less "how do I?" questions that any previous OS.

That's exactly "it". A point also often made on the LinuxMint forum when it is thrown back and forth why "newbies" do not stick to one of the Linux Mint releases once they have downloaded the OS. It is simply too much additional trouble (and laziness) to learn how to use it, especially for people who use the machines for chatting, mailing and surfing. Pushing buttons is about all they are willing to do and once they know that they don't want to push different buttons. In a way they are maybe right.
PS. Maybe the next Windows OS should be Windows AU (average user) without all these fancy programs like photoshop, office programs and firewalls that require a study to adjust while knowing (more or less) what you are doing.
And i like to add the following. This forum maybe densely "populated" but it has an insignificant
number of users/visitors compared to the millions and millions of W7 users. And then, as once mentioned by Corrine, most of them come here via googling for a problem they have encountered.